Children’s drama about life during WWII
Pupils at four Dorset schools are the dramatists, scriptwriters and actors in a new eight part audio drama co-produced by WADT: Children of World War Two. Inspired by oral histories from people who were children during the war, the dramas tell stories from the Dorset homefront from a child’s perspective.
Episodes cover the lives of families in Weymouth, Puddletown, Wool, Lulworth and the Tynham Valley from the summer of 1940 to 1944, spanning the everyday queuing up for food to moments that will change people’s lives forever.
Project co-director Alastair Nisbet from WADT partner arts organisation ScreenPLAY explained: “These are both ordinary and extraordinary stories from everyday life 80 years ago. The children have worked with our scriptwriters and drama directors and turned true stories from local people into short dramas complete with the music and songs of the day.”
They deal with those difficult questions children ask:
Will Timmy the Teddy survive this bombing raid?
How can you get into the pictures for free?
Why is school closed and who are those strange men inside?
Why are there prisoners knocking on our door looking for children?
Why is mother’s shopping basket full of hand grenades?
These and more are covered in the series which is a ScreenPLAY production in partnership with Weymouth Area Development Trust for Nothe Fort, made with funding from the Heritage Lottery and Dorset Council.
Extracts from four episodes are playing on listening points in the Nothe. You can listen on the ScreenPLAY audio player by clicking the picture, find the series on Apple and Amazon podcasts or listen at screen-play.co.uk.
Interviews and episodes broadcast on Keep106FM radio can be listened to again on the station’s website keep106.com
Bomb Get in the Shelter: All 100 children who took part in the project spent a day as evacuees at the Nothe and came back in May 2025 to dance the Palais Glide, the dance they all did on VE Day.
Easy listening: ScreenPLAY’s audio player makes it simple to listen to episodes on your phone
ScreenPLAY – Creating interactive narratives
Scan the code for our eight part drama Children of WWII
http://screen-play.co.uk/ww2